Port Arthur is located in the south of Baiyu Mountain in Jinzhou, located in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, and is an important gateway to Beijing and Tianjin, and shares the throat of the Bohai Strait with Dengzhou.

The port is surrounded by mountains, with the Golden Mountain in the east and the Tiger Tail Peninsula in the west, and a narrow waterway connecting with the open sea.

The harbor has good concealment and windproofness, and is a rare deep-water port in the north.

It is only 244 kilometers away from Tianjin Port, 119 kilometers from Dengju, and 430 kilometers from Incheon Port in North Korea.

Port Arthur is far above Yingkou Port in terms of geographical location and military value.

However, the disadvantage is that it is far away from Liaoyang and Shenyang, the core areas of eastern Liaoning, and it is located in a remote area with no roads.

Therefore, it will only be used as a military port for the time being, and its commercial value will be redeveloped when the road is completed.

After Li Xianzhong became the commander of Liaodong, he mastered more troops, but relatively speaking, the supply pressure was also greater.

An army of 100,000 people, even if it is calculated according to the minimum monthly salary of 1 tael and 5 yuan of silver, the annual salary of silver will cost 1.8 million taels, and the food consumption is also about 1.4 million stones.

Now that Daming is pouring the power of the whole country to support Liaodong, it is still difficult, how easy is it for him to use the power of Liaodong to support Liaozhen?

Li Xianzhong currently has 1.8 million taels of silver, 1.2 million stones of corn and rice, and 500,000 stones of sweet potatoes.

This money and food looks like a lot, but if you want to raise your own soldiers, these are only enough for the money and food expenses of 100,000 troops for a year.

Although Li Xianzhong made a lot of money, he also shared a lot of profits.

Take the most profitable Jingshi Heaven and Earth as an example, at present, Li Xianzhong himself only has 4 percent of the cadre shares, Wei Zhongxian accounts for 3 percent, and Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, and Zhang Zhiji, the son of the British Gong, each account for 1 and a half percent.

Of course, for the time being, the income of heaven and earth is transferred to the accounts of the Intelligence Department, which is used to set up outlets throughout the country.

However, at present, the various industries of the Intelligence Division have a lot of income, and the surplus on the account has exceeded 100,000 taels.

30% of the revenue of Yingkou Customs was also given to Yan Mingtai, who distributed it to officials at all levels in Liaodong.

The only thing Li Xianzhong can monopolize now is the customs duties of the Korean trade, and after the death of the Wanli Emperor, he no longer has to pay 150,000 taels of silver to the emperor every year.

The Emperor of the Apocalypse was not very interested in silver.

However, the silver in the hands of the Tartars has been almost pit by him, and the trade between Horqin and Jianzhou has almost been interrupted.

He now earns about 120,000 taels of silver a month.

So he now has to find new target markets, on the one hand, to expand trade and increase income.

It's more important to find a granary that is a little more stable.

So some overseas islands became his targets.

In the 31st year of Wanli, after the Battle of Sekigahara, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the shogun of Seiyi, established the shogunate in Edo, and the Tokugawa shogunate era began.

At present, the power of the Tokugawa shogunate is still very strong, and the combat power of the Japanese invaders is relatively strong, so the Japanese islands are not considered by Li Xianzhong for the time being.

Based on the current voyage of the Liaodong Naval Division, there are three eligible target islands: Jeju Island, Taiwan Island, and the Ryukyu Islands.

Jeju Island is the closest to Liaodong and easy to control, but the environment on the island is relatively harsh, and there are not many fields that can be planted, so it is suitable for horse grazing.

There was no shortage of pastures in Liaodong, and it didn't make much sense to occupy Jeju Island.

The island of Taiwan is also a good choice, Li Xianzhong remembers that the Dutch only began to invade Taiwan in the 4th year of the Apocalypse, so now there should be only some indigenous people and a small number of Han immigrants on the island.

However, Taiwan is too backward and needs a large number of immigrants to develop.

At present, Li Xianzhong even has part of the land in Liaodong, and it is impossible to vigorously develop the island of Taiwan, and there are still more than three years to go, and he is not in a hurry.

Of course, as a person of later generations, Li Xianzhong will definitely take Taiwan, and it is absolutely impossible for Taiwan to fall into the hands of the Dutch.

However, at present, his strength is relatively limited, and there are not enough sailors stationed in Taiwan, so it was decided to let Taiwan go for the time being.

After much thought, he felt that Ryukyu was a good choice.

Although the Ryukyu Kingdom was relatively large, consisting of hundreds of islands, there were only a few dozen islands with people.

Among them, the main island of Ryukyu and Amami Oshima account for nearly half of the area of Ryukyu.

Therefore, the Ming army only needs to control the 36 islands of the Ryukyus, with these two islands as the core, and can basically control the Ryukyus.

At this time, the population of the Ryukyus was also two or three hundred thousand, which was able to provide sufficient labor, and there was no need for a large number of time-consuming and laborious immigrants for the time being.

After the occupation of the Ryukyus, it could also be used as a springboard to Taiwan in the south or Japan in the north.

In addition, after the occupation of the Ryukyus, in addition to grain, sugar cane could be grown to produce a large amount of sugar.

In fact, in the wealthy Jiangnan region, the price of white sugar is four or five times that of salt.

But sugar is not only edible, but also a strategic commodity.

The power of gunpowder can be greatly increased by mixing sugar with gunpowder, which is a raw material for making explosives and can also be used as a fuel additive for rocket boosting.

It can be said that sugar is one of the easiest ways that Li Xianzhong can think of to increase the power of gunpowder and the range of guns in this era.

Therefore, the target of this Liaodong naval division attack was the Ryukyu Kingdom, which was 1,800 kilometers away.

If Fufune were to attack the Ryukyus at such a long distance without a tailwind, it would be a bit difficult.

However, now the three capital ships of the Liaodong Naval Division are the Spanish galleons of Galen.

They are the 680-ton "Kaiyuan" and the two 480-ton "Tieling" and "Fushun".

He was accompanied by six 600-ton commercial Spanish galleons built at the Incheon Shipyard.

Since they were all galleons, these merchant ships and warships were still matched in terms of speed.

Now that Liaodong is basically under his control, there is no movement on Jianyu's side for the time being, and Li Xianzhong can finally take the time to go on the expedition.

Originally, he wanted Kong Youde to command this expedition, he was familiar with both naval divisions and land warfare in Korea, and he had experience in dealing with the kings and ministers of these vassal states, and was also proficient in the way of business.

It's a pity that it is said that after Dai Shan inherited the throne of Khan, he was also fighting hard, and there were signs of attacking North Korea, and Kong Youde couldn't get out.

In the end, he recommended his fellow villager Geng Zhongming to lead the troops, and Geng Zhongming had been in charge of the Hongtoushan Copper Mine for more than a year.

Since the Pingwei went south to garrison the Boundary Domain, he has taken charge of the operation and defense of the copper mine, and he has done quite well.

Under his management, the production of private mines in Hongtou Mountain has reached new highs, and there has been no shortage of defense, and he has also captured Tartar spies many times.

Therefore, he also accumulated merit and rose to the rank of guerrilla general.

In fact, he prefers to deal with military generals than civilian officials.

Most of these people are true temperaments, and there are not so many vanities.

Among the civil officials in Liaodong, he also hit Yan Mingtai at first sight, and now under the governance of Li Xianzhong, Liaodong has the posture of controlling literature with force.

In fact, this is also a helpless move, after all, in case there is a change in the DPRK in the future, there are not many civil officials who are willing to follow him with all their hearts.

In addition to the retainers of the Li family, only Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and Fan Wencheng, who are from relatively low backgrounds, are willing to follow their own path to the dark.

He is also willing to give these people a platform.

Of course, there are still a lot of talents in Daming, and he still has to try his best to win over those young talents, including Lu Xiangsheng, Yuan Chonghuan, and Cao Wenzhao, anyway, he has already given the list to the Intelligence Department, and then it will be up to Mao Yuanyi.

Soon Li Xianzhong boarded the flagship Kaiyuan, and with the order of Deng Gang, the general of the Liaodong Naval Division, the sailors on the ship began to push the huge winch and pull the heavy iron anchor from the water.

As the breeze gently blows, the huge sailboat begins to slowly sail away from the harbor.

Under the sun's rays, the huge sails of the Kaihara emitted a golden glow. The hull of the ship swayed gently, and as the waves rose and fell, the port of Arthur behind it became smaller and smaller.

Looking at the huge white sail behind him, Li Xianzhong was also full of emotion, although there were only 9 boats, the smallest one reached 480 tons.

This is the first real expedition to the open sea after Zheng He's "Seven Voyages to the West".

So this time the preparation is also quite sufficient.

The entire fleet consisted of three thousand Ming troops, of which 1,500 were sailors and gunners, and 1,500 were infantry.

In addition to the Rumpy, it also carried a light 6-pounder Franc cannon and a number of Tiger squat guns.

Of course, the Ming Dynasty is a state of etiquette after all, so they are still fighting in the name of caravans.

In addition to supplies such as munitions and fresh water and food, they also carried a lot of goods, such as porcelain produced in Pingyu Fort, as well as some copper household utensils, Buddha statues, ginseng, and some other medicinal materials.

Of course, I also carried a lot of cement in case of emergency!

There were also some accompanying businessmen who even found a Ryukyuan translator from Korea!

Spanish galleons have a speed of around 7-10 knots (13-18 km/h), making them far more suitable for ocean voyages than fortune ships.

Deng Gang said: "Uncle Ning, if everything goes well, we will be able to arrive in Ryukyu in ten days." ”

Li Xianzhong nodded with satisfaction and said, "It seems that the ocean still depends on large ships, and the Tieling is much more stable than the Fu ship!" ”

Then he looked at Geng Zhongming, who was pale, and said, "Geng Guerrilla, are you okay?" ”

Geng Zhongming immediately cheered up and said: "Ning Yuanbo, rest assured, the last general only vomited twice, and now he has adapted to the turbulence at sea, and he is not seasick much." ”

The 3,000 men and horses on this expedition were all subordinate to Yingkou Road, and the sailors naturally did not get seasick, and even the infantry had been specially trained.

Only Geng Zhongming was temporarily transferred here from the Hongtoushan Copper Mine, although he also took a boat all the way from the Liao River to Yingkou and then transferred to Lushun.

However, it is impossible to compare the wind and waves with the sea, and in the end, Geng Zhongming still came out of the ocean.

Li Xianzhong said with a smile: "This is all because Ben Bo was not thoughtful, and he did not let Geng Guerrilla float at sea for two more days in advance. ”

Then he took out a jar and said, "Here are some candied fruits made by me with yellow plums, and some of them will be sent to the soldiers who are seasick and uncomfortable, and they can relieve the symptoms by holding them in their mouths." ”

Geng Zhongming picked up a candied fruit and put it in his mouth, and the sweet and sour taste quickly prompted him to secrete a large amount of saliva, and sure enough, he felt less seasick.

For seven or eight days, the fleet went very smoothly, but it encountered a storm, but fortunately the fleet did not lose anything.

Suddenly, the sailors standing on the watchtower shouted: "Enemy situation has been found ahead!" ”

Soon Li Xianzhong and the others came to the top of the ship, and saw two large galleons flying the tricolor flag in the distance, chasing a medium-sized sailing ship flying the Portuguese flag.

In this era, the transport ships in the East Asian seas and European merchant ships were basically armed merchant ships, and these merchant ships were equipped with artillery, and once they encountered ships from other countries, they would be directly robbed.

This is one of the reasons why Li Xianzhong has not developed trade with Japan so far, and his current naval division is only enough to control the coast of Korea, and it is difficult to maintain the escort fleet on the Japanese route.

However, after the two 800-ton capital ships are launched, with powerful artillery, he should be able to compete with the old maritime powers such as the Netherlands and Spain in East Asia!

At this time, Deng Gang said: "Uncle Ning, Fernando's first mate requests to fire a cannon to stop those Dutch illegal robbery of Portuguese merchant ships!" ”

Originally, the Dutch and the Portuguese dog-eat-dog Li Xianzhong was too lazy to participate.

But after all, there were still a large number of Portuguese sailors from Macao in his fleet, and there were also many grape mechanics in the shipyard gunhouse, so he simply made a move, and by the way, he also familiarized his fleet with how to rob.

Soon, Kaiyuan fired artillery at the ship of He Lan in the distance.

The maximum range of the 12-pounder Hongyi cannon was only 1,500 meters, and the Dutch ship must have been 2,000 meters away from it at this time.

This shelling is more of a warning nature.

The displacement of the two Dutch merchant ships should be only 500 tons, and they were shocked when they saw such a large fleet.

Especially when he saw the sun and moon dragon flag fluttering on the mast, he was even more shocked!

Although the Ming Dynasty was forbidden to the sea at this time, it still had contacts with the Netherlands, and the Dutch knew that only the Ming Dynasty could use this kind of flag in East Asia.

However, these flags have one more dragon than the ordinary Ming flag.

Hell, let alone the Ming Kingdom, even Portugal and Spain don't have such a large fleet here.

The heroes did not suffer immediate losses, and the Dutch quickly turned the bow of the ship and broke away from contact with the Liaodong naval division.

And the Portuguese medium-sized merchant ship had been surrounded by the oncoming Liaodong naval division.

The towering stern and bow of the Spanish Galen were the best suitors for a fret, and soon the Portuguese ship was honestly raising the white flag.

Soon after, the ship's merchants were taken to Kaihara.

I saw that the leader was an obese businessman in his forties, and it was not difficult to see from his dark skin that this person should have been running a business all year round.

Li Xianzhong said: "Bold profiteers not only violate the Ming Dynasty's ban on the sea; Dare to hang a sheep's head to sell dog meat and hang the flag of Portugal, it's really damned! ”

The fat businessman was intimidated by Li Xianzhong and wanted to kneel on the spot.

But he was soon picked up by a tall young man, and then the young man muttered a bunch of foreign words.

Deng Gang, who had been with the Portuguese for a long time and had already learned Latin, said: "This man said that they were only running for the Portuguese shipowners in Macau, so they were flying the Portuguese flag, not selling dog meat on the head of a sheep!" ”

Li Xianzhong said: "What does a Ming man say in foreign language, and if he doesn't say human words, he will be dragged down and cut down directly!" ”

Seeing this, the fat merchant hurriedly said: "Yiguan, you don't want to talk about it!" ”

Then he said: "The villain Huang Cheng has been doing business in Macao all the year round, and this time he was chased and killed by the Dutch, but fortunately he was rescued by the officials and soldiers. The villain ship has 10,000 taels of silver, as well as copper ingots and sulfur and other materials willing to be offered to thank the generals for saving their lives! ”

Li Xianzhong was taken aback when he heard Huang Cheng's name, isn't Zheng Zhilong's uncle called Huang Cheng?

He just called the young man "Yiguan", isn't this Zheng Zhilong's nickname?

Li Xianzhong said: "This uncle is Ning Yuanbo Li Xianzhong, I think you are also very risky to do business at sea, how can you be willing to follow me?" ”

At this time, Huang Cheng and Zheng Zhilong were also surprised, the young general in front of them was actually Li Xianzhong, who was in the Ming Dynasty.

They have also heard of Li Xianzhong's control of the sale of business licenses by sea in North Korea.

At this time, since the other party has already informed their identity, they have no choice.

Otherwise, Ning Yuanbo would not let them leave here alive.

So Huang Cheng hurriedly pulled Zheng Zhilong to kneel down and said: "Ning Yuanbo can afford to wait for us, it is really a blessing for the small people, I don't know what we can do for Ning Yuanbo?" ”

Li Xianzhong said: "I want to occupy the Ryukyus, turn them into the territory of my Ming Dynasty, and then gradually start trading with Japan." The two must be familiar with the Japanese trade routes, and they can play for Benber. ”

"Don't worry, this ship doesn't want you, but don't make such a fuss, follow me in the future, the fleet, goods, and capital will be paid by Benbo, and I will give you 1% of the profit as a dividend."

Huang Cheng is simply happy, this Ning Yuanbo controls the trade routes of Mongolia, Liaodong, and Korea, and now he is going to capture Ryukyu.

They are relying on this big tree to do businessless business, which is really unwanted!

So I hurriedly agreed.

However, Zheng Zhilong said: "Although the Ryukyu Kingdom has not been annexed today, it is actually under the control of the Shimazu family of the Satsuma Domain. ”

"In the 37th year of Wanry, the Shimazu family sent 3,000 troops to attack the Ryukyus, turning it into their own vassal state. In the 41st year of Wanli, Shimazu Tadashi directly turned Amami Oshima into a direct territory of the Satsuma Domain. ”

"The Satsuma Domain now has a total of 732,000 koku territory, which can be regarded as one of the strongest feudal domains in Japan!"

"Uncle Ningyuan, if you want to capture the Ryukyus, you must fight to the death with the Satsuma Domain. Now the Satsuma Domain's garrison on the Ryukyu Islands is no less than 3,000 people, and its total strength in Japan is not less than 10,000 people, I wonder if Ning Yuanbo is ready? ”

Li Xianzhong knew about the invasion of the Satsuma clan in the Ryukyus, but he didn't expect them to have so many garrisons in the Ryukyus, and they directly ate Amami Oshima.

Li Xianzhong was still thinking about it, and saw Deng Gang kneeling down and said emotionally: "The last general asks Ning Yuanbo not to hesitate, and to be sure to annihilate this group of widows." ”

Li Xianzhong found that Deng Gang's mood was very wrong at this time, so he asked: "Since Ben Bo said that he wanted to capture Ryukyu, he naturally would not give up halfway, why is General Deng like this?" ”

Deng Gang said: "My grandfather is Deng Zilong, the deputy chief soldier of the Daming Water Division, who was martyred in the 'Battle of Luliang' and was beheaded by the Japanese invaders. ”

Li Xianzhong did not expect that Deng Gang was actually the grandson of the veteran Deng Zilong, and the battle of Lulianghai began, although the veteran Deng Zilong of the Ming Dynasty and the "Korean God of War" Li Sunsin both fell, but the Ming army suffered a heavy blow to the Japanese invaders.

Li Xianzhong said: "General Deng can rest assured that Benbo will definitely annihilate the Satsuma Domain of the Ryukyus." ”

Although the firepower of the Liaodong Navy Division is extremely strong, it can completely storm the Ryukyus.

However, after all, the Satsuma Domain's troops in the Ryukyus were not small, and the Japanese were relatively strong, so they finally decided to play some tricks.

The Ming army did not attack Amami Oshima, a territory directly under the Satsuma Domain.

Instead, the three main battleships were hidden in the open sea.

A fleet of seven merchant ships went straight south to the main island of the Ryukyus.

Although it was only a fleet of Spanish galleons, six of them were large merchant ships of 600 tons, which really frightened the nearby Japanese warships.

At this time, they only used Ataka ships with a displacement of only forty or fifty tons, and even the largest giant Ataku ships were more than 100 tons.

This kind of offshore warship was not at all of the same class as the galleon.

Huang Cheng and Zheng Zhilong soon led 7 merchant ships to Naha, the largest port on the main island of the Ryukyus.

At this time, the Ryukyu Kingdom was already a puppet, and the decree of the Ryukyu King could not leave his palace at all.

Both Naha Port and Shuri Castle, the royal city of the Ryukyus, were under the control of the Satsuma clan at this time.

Originally, I thought that the Ming army was here to envoy Ryukyu, which frightened them, and if the Ming knew that he controlled Ryukyu, it would be a big trouble.

After all, it had only been more than 20 years since Toyotomi Hideyoshi's failed expedition to Korea, and the Tokugawa shogunate was still a little afraid of the Ming Dynasty, not to mention that it was just a small Satsuma domain.

Just when Shimazu Mitsuyoshi, who was in charge of staying behind, had a headache, news came that these Ming troops were only here to trade.

The Ming Dynasty has been forbidden to the sea for many years, and it is not without businessmen who secretly come out to smuggle, but how you look at so many galleons does not look like the personal smuggling behavior of profiteers.

Huang Cheng and Zheng Zhilong quickly unloaded the ship's goods from the dock, and when a large number of porcelain, copperware, and medicinal materials appeared in the market, the merchants of the entire Ryukyu Island were boiling.

Moreover, the price of these Ming merchants is not very high, as long as they sell these goods to Japan, the price can at least double again.

Soon the goods were snapped up.

However, after all, there were seven large ships, and the merchants of Naha Port could not buy all of them for a while.

At this time, Shimazu Mitsuyoshi inevitably had evil thoughts, and if all the goods on the merchant ships of the Ming army were sold to Japan, they would be worth four or five hundred thousand taels of silver.

Although these Ming merchants say that the selling price is not high, where is the cool without spending money?

According to the investigation, although those Ming merchants invited many families to protect them, the number of them was limited after all. Their ship is now parked in the harbor, and it is not difficult for them to take the opportunity to kill them.

However, now the troops in Naha Port are insufficient, so Shimazu Mitsuyoshi secretly mobilized another 1,000 men from Amami Oshima to come to the vicinity of Naha, ready to do a big job.

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(End of chapter)